Incorporating a monetary variable into the Schelling model addresses the issue of a decreasing entropy trace

A possible thermodynamic definition and equation of state for a model of political election cycles

This work demonstrates how a simulation of political discourse can be formulated using variables of the agents' behaviors in a simulation, as thermodynamic variables. With these relations the methodology provides an approach to create a correspondence between the variables of an agent based social system and those of a thermodynamic system. Extended from this observation, diagrams akin to a P-V diagram for gases can be created for this social system. The basic thermodynamic variables of temperature, pressure and volume are defined from a system of agents with political and non-political actions engaged in simulated political discourse. An equation of state is defined for the simulated political phenomenon. Through this equation of state the full thermodynamic map of the system is presented under a P-V diagram with isothermal and isentropic lines, which is able to represent the political situation of the system at each point of time. The classic election cycle that takes place can be represented on this thermodynamic map (corresponding to an Otto cycle). This provides a possibility for researching macroscopic social cycles as a thermodynamic/informational cycle as the traces on the thermodynamic map show similarities to an Otto cycle. Such a formulation reinforces the endeavours of social physics to view social phenomena with physical principles.

Mobility constraints in segregation models

Since the development of the original Schelling model of urban segregation, several enhancements have been proposed, but none have considered the impact of mobility constraints on model dynamics. Recent studies have shown that human mobility follows specific patterns, such as a preference for short distances and dense locations. This paper proposes a segregation model incorporating mobility constraints to make agents select their location based on distance and location relevance. Our findings indicate that the mobility-constrained model produces lower segregation levels but takes longer to converge than the original Schelling model. We identified a few persistently unhappy agents from the minority group who cause this prolonged convergence time and lower segregation level as they move around the grid centre. Our study presents a more realistic representation of how agents move in urban areas and provides a novel and insightful approach to analyzing the impact of mobility constraints on segregation models. We highlight the significance of incorporating mobility constraints when policymakers design interventions to address urban segregation.

Exploring the entropic nature of political polarization through its formulation as a isolated thermodynamic system

Political polarization has become an alarming trend observed in various countries. In the effort to produce more consistent simulations of the process, insights from the foundations of physics are adopted. The work presented here looks at a simple model of political polarization amongst agents which influence their immediate locality and how a entropy trace of the political discourse can be produced. From this model an isolated system representation can be formulated in respect to the changes in the entropy values across all variables of the system over simulation time. It is shown that a constant entropy value for the system can be calculated so that as the agents coalesce their opinions, the entropy trace in regards to political engagements decreases as the entropy value across non-political engagements increase. This relies upon an intrinsic constraint upon agents imposing a fixed number of activities per time point. As a result the simulation respects the second law of thermodynamics and provides insight into political polarization as a basin of entropy within an isolated system without making assumptions about external activities.